Week 3 in the NFL was weird. While one team was seemingly showing us what offense will look like 30 years in the future, another was reminding us of what things were like traveling that far into the past. The consensus best team in football through two weeks lost to one that was supposed to be tanking. The league's most reliable player failed with the game on the line, while a tight end hit the turbo button to produce something we might never see again in our lifetimes.
And all of that's without even considering the battle between the Chargers and Vikings, where the old shootout adage of "whoever has the ball last wins" was replaced by "whoever has the ball last loses in heartbreaking fashion."
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Let's break down the most surprising things from Sunday of Week 3, explaining the strange games, endings and plays. Some of what happened looks more defensible and understandable upon a closer glance, but other situations seem even more incomprehensible. That starts with what happened in Miami, where the Dolphins appeared to be playing a different sport than their opponents.
Jump to a Week 3 game:
ARI 28, DAL 16
DET 20, ATL 6 | GB 18, NO 17
HOU 37, JAX 17 | IND 22, BAL 19
MIA 70, DEN 20 | NE 15, NYJ 10
1. The Dolphins ran for 350 yards and five touchdowns while dropping 70 points
The game: Miami 70, Denver 20
When a team scores 70 points, it gets to lead the Monday morning column. I don't think anybody is naive about what the Dolphins can accomplish on offense when they're rolling, but coming within striking distance of an NFL record for most points in a game on a day when they didn't have Jaylen Waddle stands out as surprising. Coach Mike McDaniel probably played a round or two of Mortal Kombat II as a child; given the chance to tie the NFL record by kicking a field goal and reaching 73 points, McDaniel reached into his heart and chose to offer Denver's Sean Payton friendship over a fatality.
While Tua Tagovailoa was nearly perfect and Tyreek Hill racked up 157 receiving yards in what was a ho-hum game by his impossible standards, the attention Sunday understandably went toward Miami's running backs. Raheem Mostert and rookie De'Von Achane each scored four touchdowns, becoming the second set of teammates in NFL history to rack up four scores each in one game. Priest Holmes and Derrick Blaylock managed to pull it off for the Chiefs in a blowout victory over the Falcons nearly 20 years ago.
This is particularly exciting for the Dolphins given the area they struggled in a year ago. The biggest weakness on their roster might have been at running back. NFL Next Gen Stats has a measure called rush yards over expectation (RYOE), which incorporates the location and movement of blockers and defenders at the time of a handoff to estimate how many yards an average back would get in the same situation. No model is ever going to be perfect, but the RYOE model ranked Nick Chubb as the most effective back in football last season, so that's a promising start.
Last season, McDaniel and the Dolphins were able to create running opportunities for their backs but the ball carriers weren't able to make a difference. Their average run play was expected to gain a league-best 5.1 yards last season. Instead, they averaged 4.3 yards per carry. The resulting gap between their expected yards per carry and actual yards per carry was the worst mark in football.
The Dolphins traded Chase Edmonds last year and haven't had Jeff Wilson, who is on injured reserve. Mostert is in the lead role, and after serving as a healthy scratch in Week 1, Achane saw his most meaningful action Sunday. In 2023, the model actually thinks the Dolphins have been less effective at creating rushing opportunities: their expected yards per carry is down to 4.4 yards, which is eighth in the league.
After Sunday, the Dolphins are averaging 2.6 rush yards over expectation this season. They comfortably lead the league in RYOE per carry this season, with nearly twice as many RYOE per play as the second-ranked 49ers.
What has changed from last season? The big plays. In 2022, despite their success throwing the ball and Mostert's résumé as a big-play merchant, the Dolphins had just one gain of at least 30 yards on the ground, which tied them for the fewest in the league. They had three 30-plus yarders Sunday alone, including runs of 40 and 67 yards by Achane and a 52-yard scamper by third-string back Chris Brooks, who came in while Miami was nursing a seven-possession lead in the fourth quarter.
The same stressors McDaniel applies to pass defenses also show up in the Dolphins' big plays on the ground. Late motion allows them to force defenses to adjust on the fly while attempting to deal with world-class speed throughout the lineup. It was too easy for them to outflank the Broncos; when Denver tried to deal with the motion by playing zone, Miami simply gained a numbers advantage in terms of blockers. When the Broncos were in man coverage, defenders were motioned out of the play and never became a meaningful part of the run fit. It felt as if the Dolphins always had Denver on the wrong foot on a day when they ran more snaps with a player in motion than any other game in ESPN's database, going back through 2017.
The plays weren't anything extraordinary -- there were some cool wrinkles on concepts such as crunch and an end around to Achane -- but the Broncos were just hopelessly overmatched. I'm not sure I can remember a game in which an offense routinely got more linemen to the second level to attack linebackers. As a result, Miami's backs hit the line of scrimmage without needing to slow down or be patient in finding the right hole. Mostert and Achane now rank Nos. 1 and 2 in average speed when crossing the line of scrimmage on carries.
When the running backs did get a bit of space, disaster ensued. Mostert and Achane bounced off would-be tackle attempts and ran away from Broncos defenders. Denver was down multiple starters because of injuries, and their replacements might want to call in sick for film on Monday. Rookie Drew Sanders came in for injured Josey Jewell and struggled, while second-year safety Delarrin Turner-Yell was forced into the lineup for Justin Simmons and whiffed on multiple tackles on long Miami runs. By the end of the game, it was backup edge rusher Thomas Incoom who took himself out of a play while attempting to respond to a would-be jet sweep, creating a running lane for Achane on his 67-yard touchdown.
What happened at the end of the game made this all the more impressive. By the fourth quarter, Tagovailoa and Hill were on the sideline. Waddle missed the entire game. All the components of the devastating passing attack that should make life easy for the running game were on the sideline. Heck, with Wilson out and Mostert on the bench, McDaniel wasn't even using his top two running backs.
The Dolphins still ran 11 times for 141 yards without those guys on the field. I'm sure the Broncos were enduring some element of psychic pain after what had happened over the first three quarters, but what does it tell you when Miami was hitting big plays with Mike White, Robbie Chosen and Braxton Berrios replacing the big three?
Miami is averaging 0.32 expected points added (EPA) per play through three weeks. That's the best mark through three weeks of any team going back through ESPN's EPA data, which runs from 2007. The teams just behind it are a murderers' row of juggernaut offenses: the 2020 Packers, 2018 Chiefs, 2008 Broncos and 2007 Patriots. The 2008 Broncos fell off, but the other three teams dominated the rest of the way. Their quarterbacks all won league MVP. If the Dolphins keep this up against the Bills next week, Tagovailoa will be a prohibitive favorite to follow in their footsteps.
2. The Cowboys fell apart in the red zone in their stunning loss to the Cardinals
The game: Arizona 28, Dallas 16
It took four days for the storm clouds to gather in Dallas. After two comfortable victories to start the season, a dominant Cowboys team was hit by a catastrophic injury when Trevon Diggs tore the ACL in his left knee in practice Thursday. On Sunday, what was supposed to be an easy win against an overmatched team quickly turned into a nightmare. Joshua Dobbs' 44-yard run on the second play of the game off a zone-read keeper quickly set the tone, and Dallas spent much of the day chasing shadows.
On defense, the Cardinals were able to take advantage of Dallas' aggressiveness. A long Rondale Moore rushing touchdown came against a five-man box, with the Cowboys daring the Cardinals to run on a snap in which Micah Parsons wasn't on the field. Dallas is a great team working out of dime (with six defensive backs), but the Cardinals made them pay.
Many of the big runs came on snaps in which Parsons' incredible ability to get into the backfield was turned against him. The Dobbs run came when the Cardinals read Parsons as opposed to blocking the star edge rusher, allowing them to take him out of the play by indulging his desire to get after the quarterback. Parsons then burst inside on a first-and-10, but no Cowboys defender was able to scrape over the top and exchange gap responsibilities with the star linebacker, opening up a lane for James Conner to pick up 20 yards. Another 26 yards came on a pin/pull sweep where Parsons penetrated into the backfield but was unable to make a play before Conner got outside. Another 12-yard Conner run cut back away from Parsons' side, where force defender Dante Fowler had overpursued and lost the edge.
Even great defenses can have bad games against the run. It happens. Naturally, though, much of the discussion surrounding Sunday's loss will fall on the offense. The Cowboys scored 16 points on eight drives and went just 1-for-5 in converting red zone trips into touchdowns. They made it inside the 20 in each of their four second-half possessions and turned those drives into six points. They kicked two field goals, failed once on downs and had their final drive culminate in a Dak Prescott interception.
Unlike the defensive struggle, this has been a multiweek issue for the Cowboys. After going 3-for-4 in the red zone against the Giants in Week 1, Mike McCarthy's team converted just two of its six red zone trips into touchdowns against the Jets last week. Nobody noticed because Zach Wilson and the New York offense couldn't have scored 30 points if the Cowboys had given them 30 drives to try, but when the other offense showed up to play this week, their profligacy inside the 20 was exposed.
Overall, the Cowboys have scored touchdowns on just 40% of their red zone trips this season, which ranks 28th in the NFL. A year ago, this was not a problem: They scored on more than 71% of their red zone trips, which was the league's best mark. First to 28th is going to get attention if you're any team, let alone the Cowboys.
Now, if you're a regular reader, you can probably guess what I'm about to say next. Research I've done in the past has suggested red zone performance typically regresses toward the mean for a variety of reasons, most notably because we're dealing with a few plays in a small sample. We've seen this sort of dramatic decline in the recent past, too. The best red zone offense in 2021 was the 49ers, and over the first three weeks of 2022, they ranked 27th in red zone efficiency, converting 44% of the time. (They were 13th in conversion rate after Week 3.)
There are differences. The first is that the 49ers were installing a new quarterback in Trey Lance for two of those three games, while the Cowboys are returning much of their offensive personnel from a year ago. The second is that the red zone research holds that teams who are disproportionately effective in the red zone relative to outside of the 20 will struggle to keep that up, and the 49ers were struggling everywhere on offense for most of the first three weeks a year ago. The Cowboys are second in EPA per play outside the 20 and 25th once they get inside the red zone.
That's good news, because it tells us the offense is still doing well. The Cowboys have made a league-high 15 trips to the red zone, and as long as they remain efficient on offense, they'll punch the ball in more often than they have so far. The bad news is that an offense that was great in the red zone last season and great outside of the red zone this season is struggling mightily inside the 20 right now, and their personnel changes might explain why.
The two biggest subtractions for the Cowboys on offense this offseason came at running back (Ezekiel Elliott) and tight end (Dalton Schultz). Both played huge roles in the red zone. Between 2021 and 2022, Elliott fielded 81 red zone touches to Tony Pollard's 48. Schultz led the team in red zone targets (30), receptions (17) and receiving touchdowns (11). Elliott and Schultz combined to score 35 of the team's 81 touchdowns inside the red zone over the past two seasons, including 29 of 64 inside the 10-yard line.
The solutions the Cowboys have adopted to replace those guys are struggling. Pollard has 24 carries inside the red zone, 10 more than any other player in the league. He has a league-high eight carries inside the 5-yard line. I'm not sure I blame Pollard for those woes -- there were unblocked defenders on several of those failures, including his lone carry inside the 5 on Sunday -- but the Dallas rushing attack has not been efficient or well-orchestrated inside the 5 so far. It hasn't been very north-south over the past two weeks.
In the passing game, tight end has again been the focal point. Jake Ferguson has eight red zone targets when no other player has three. He has caught four of them, but only one of those eight targets has resulted in a first down or a touchdown. Two of the four catches have been screens. Brandin Cooks and CeeDee Lamb, meanwhile, are 0-for-5 as receivers.
There's an obvious reason to go for Ferguson inside the 20, as he's the only big receiver on the roster. At 6-foot-5 and 244 pounds, he is the only one of Dallas' regular pass-catchers over 200 pounds. Pollard is listed at 209 pounds, but you get the idea: This is a smaller group of receivers than it was over the past few seasons, when Amari Cooper (203 pounds), Elliott (225 pounds) and Schultz (244 pounds) would have been playing roles near the red zone.
While the Cowboys will likely regress toward the mean inside the 20, their chances of being a dominant red zone offense might depend on McCarthy being creative to draw up opportunities for his undersize playmakers. (Kellen Moore's Chargers, in case you're wondering, rank second in red zone conversion rate.) This team needs a between-the-tackles runner to help near the goal line, and ironically, the most logical trade candidate would be Conner from Arizona.
For the Cowboys in the big picture, this was a chance to bank an easy win and stay on pace with the top of the NFC at 3-0. Instead, after the 49ers manhandled the Giants on Thursday night, San Francisco currently holds the top spot in the conference pending the result of Monday night's Eagles-Buccaneers game. Losing to the Cardinals costs Dallas in the conference tiebreakers and creates more uncertainty in advance of a California road trip to face the 49ers and Chargers in Weeks 5 and 6.
3. Justin Tucker missed a game-winning field goal attempt
The game: Indianapolis 22, Baltimore 19 (OT)
Tucker isn't the league's best player because of the innate limitations of being a kicker, but is there any player who is more reliable? If you could count on any player doing his job with the game on the line -- with all due respect to the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons -- wouldn't you pick Tucker? The numbers would bear that out: Since he entered the league in 2012, Tucker had gone 31-for-33 on field goal attempts in the final two minutes of regulation and overtime. That's before Sunday.
For about four seconds, it looked as if Tucker had bailed the Ravens out of a sloppy performance at home against the Colts. From the television angle behind the play, the star kicker's 61-yard boot quickly seemed to align between the uprights. That was no surprise. It was truly shocking, though, when the kick fell just short of the sticks and hit the stanchion at the base of the goalposts. You could believe in a stray wind gust at the wrong time pushing his kick just wide of the goalposts, but not having enough club? Tucker?
For anyone else, this would hardly be a surprise. A 61-yarder is difficult to hit in domed stadiums, let alone in a steady September rain in Baltimore. The league as a whole is 21-of-44 on attempts between 59 and 64 yards over the past five seasons, and even that's subject to some serious selection bias. Teams typically won't attempt those sorts of kicks in wet, windy conditions or with kickers who don't have elite legs.
Maybe it shouldn't have been as big of a surprise. Although Tucker hit a 66-yarder to win the game against the Lions in 2021, he's 0-for-4 on kicks in that aforementioned range over the past five years and 1-for-8 on kicks of 60 yards or more over the past decade. Anything seems possible with Tucker because of how reliable he has been inside of 60, but even the best has his limits.
Facing a Colts team with backup quarterback Gardner Minshew at the helm, the Ravens didn't expect or intend to have their chances of avoiding overtime come down to a 61-yard Tucker attempt at the end of regulation. The game ending up there -- and eventually ending in a Ravens loss -- reinforces how banged up this team already looks on both sides of the football after just three games.
In a game in which the Ravens had 14 meaningful drives to work with, the offense wasn't able to sustain possession. Two of the drives produced more than two first downs; unsurprisingly, they both produced touchdowns. Nine of the 14 drives produced either zero first downs or one first down. Without left tackle Ronnie Stanley and center Tyler Linderbaum, Baltimore wasn't a threat to run effectively on third-and-manageable; it had five drives end with failures on third down with 5 or fewer yards to go. One drive ended when backup center Sam Mustipher appeared to snap the ball before Lamar Jackson was ready.
Jackson was effective running the football as a scrambler, as his five carries produced 48 yards, but the Ravens felt the impact of going down to their fourth- and fifth-string options at running back. With J.K. Dobbins and Justice Hill out, they dressed veterans Melvin Gordon and Kenyan Drake behind Gus Edwards. Gordon turned his 10 carries into just 32 yards, although he did catch two passes for 23 yards. Drake carried the ball only once, but his most notable contribution was fumbling at the end of a 24-yard catch in the first quarter, handing the ball over to the Colts as the Ravens were about to enter the red zone.
While Odell Beckham Jr. isn't exactly the burner he once was, the Ravens felt his absence, and Dobbins'. A team can win games without steady first downs on drives if it produces big plays, but the explosives that were once a hallmark of this offense haven't arrived yet in 2023. The Ravens have just one play of 30 yards or more through three weeks, a 52-yard pass from Jackson to Zay Flowers in Week 2. That's tied for the fewest in football. Between 2019 and 2022, they averaged 1.6 explosive plays per game, which was the ninth most.
A defense that is down its two best players in the secondary in Marlon Humphrey and Marcus Williams didn't have a bad day, but it wasn't any surprise who popped up when the Colts did hit big plays in the passing game. Minshew's two longest completions of the day came on targets against cornerback Brandon Stephens, who was moving to safety over the summer before injuries forced the 25-year-old to move back to cornerback. Stephens is a useful utility player, but Baltimore wasn't hoping to use him at cornerback this season. Right now, it has no choice.
With injuries across the board, the Ravens need the stars they have on the roster who are healthy to play at a high level. Jackson generally had a solid game, but he lost a fumble in the second quarter that set up a Colts touchdown. Patrick Queen was beaten on a wheel route for a touchdown. And Tucker, given the opportunity to be the hero yet again, shockingly came up a yard or two short. With backups in so many regular roles right now, Baltimore can't afford anything short of perfection from its best players.
4. Andrew Beck had an incredible kickoff return for a touchdown
The game: Houston 37, Jacksonville 17
It has been exciting to see players who aren't shaped like traditional receivers get involved with offensive plays in recent years. Tackle Penei Sewell caught a pass to seal a game for the Lions last season. Fellow tackle Trey Pipkins snuck into the end zone for a Chargers 2-point conversion from Justin Herbert last week. Outside of then-Patriots lineman Dan Connolly nearly taking a kickoff to the house on a 71-yard return in 2010, though, big returns have eluded players whose 40-yard dash times run north of 4.5 seconds.
Until Sunday. Enter Texans H-back Beck, who scored on a touchdown pass from Drew Lock as a rookie in 2019 but hadn't seen the end zone since. He had two carries this season before Sunday, but I'm not sure he expected to make it back to paydirt on a return. After a short kick from the Jaguars found him, he initially bumped into designated return man Mike Boone and muffed the return. No matter. Beck picked it up, made a glacial cut that took three fast-approaching Jaguars out of the play, then turned on the jets. Per NFL Next Gen Stats data, he hit a top speed of 20.4 mph as he ran up the sideline and into the end zone for a return touchdown.
While you would never advise an NFL player to muff his return before picking it up and attempting to fly, doing so can create some unexpected benefits. Think about the famous DeSean Jackson punt return against the Giants in 2010, where the legendary receiver initially failed to bring in a Matt Dodge punt. The brief hiccup messed with New York's coverage lanes and allowed Omar Gaither to take out three Giants players with one block, clearing the way for Jackson to go to the house. Here, the Jaguars actually overran the punt, allowing one Beck cut to turn the numbers advantage in Houston's favor.
There aren't many things you'll see on an NFL Sunday that are unlikely to ever occur again, but Beck's return might be one of them. With the league adopting rules that disincentivize kickoff returns amid a landscape where the play might disappear altogether, the frequency of kickoff returns is going to be at an all-time low. Beck could have called for a fair catch and netted the Texans the ball at the 25-yard line.
Instead, the 255-pound player plowed forward for a stunning score. In the history of the league, only one larger player had ever taken a kickoff to the house, when 258-pound tight end Casey Fitzsimmons returned an onside kick attempt for a score in 2007. With just four such returns in NFL history on a play that is already on its way out, my guess is you'll never see another 250-pounder return a kickoff for a touchdown again.
The unlikely score was just one of many highlights for the Texans on Sunday, as DeMeco Ryans won his first game as a head coach by blowing out the rival Jaguars. Rookie C.J. Stroud went 20-of-30 for 280 yards and two touchdowns, highlighted by a 68-yard pass to a totally uncovered Tank Dell on a busted coverage. Fellow rookie Will Anderson added to the big day for the draft class by blocking a field goal attempt in the second quarter.
Stroud's progress as a passer from the preseason to now is already noticeable. In his August game against the Patriots, he looked unsure in the pocket and held the ball for too long. On Sunday, although he held the ball for an average of 2.9 seconds, he looked much more confident and made throws in rhythm at the back of his drop. When he got rid of the ball within three seconds, he was 14-of-20 for 182 yards with two touchdowns.
While the Texans can't count on a burly player to return a kickoff for a score every week, getting this sort of production out of their rookie class bodes well for their chances of getting out of the AFC South basement in 2023. In fact, after you work out the tiebreakers for the three teams at 1-2, the Texans sit in second place in the South.
5. Jared Goff pulled off a zone-read keeper for a touchdown
The game: Detroit 20, Atlanta 6
Goff has 219 carries in his career. This grossly overstates his affinity for running with the football. Seventy-eight of those carries are kneel-downs, where he made no attempt to advance the football. Every quarterback loves kneel-downs. Of the remaining 141 carries, 90 are scrambles, where he ran forward only because nobody was open or the space in front of him was wide open. Most of those 219 carries are plays when Goff wasn't supposed to run.
Eleven more came on aborted snaps, plays that have to be assigned somewhere and end up on the quarterback's ledger. With 40 carries to go, ESPN Stats & Information tells us that 14 of the ensuing 40 attempts were sneaks. Goff is 6-4, so why not? He's 10-for-14 on sneaks since he was drafted in 2016.
Of the 26 remaining carries on his résumé, the data says 11 were zone-read plays. Most of them occurred during Goff's time with the Rams, but he has run it twice in three seasons with the Lions. One was for a 17-yard gain against the Packers last season. The other was Sunday, when he kept the ball on what is known as zone read arc bluff for a 3-yard touchdown.
The Lions brought tight end Sam LaPorta across the formation in motion, which is usually a move to kick out and block the defensive end on that side of the field. In this case, that's seen-it-all veteran Calais Campbell. Goff faked his handoff to Jahmyr Gibbs, while LaPorta arced around Campbell and instead blocked safety Richie Grant. All Goff had to do was beat Campbell in the open field, and although a diving Campbell was able to slap the quarterback's ankle, there was no stopping Goff from scoring.
I brought up the numbers above to point out that Goff's offenses typically have not asked him to run with the football. I'm bringing up the zone-read stuff to point out that he now has four touchdowns on five zone-read keepers inside the 5-yard line. It's not the first call on the playsheet, but it sure seems to work on those rare times when it pops up. It helped the Lions get to 2-1 Sunday.
6. Zach Wilson threw a 2-yard checkdown on fourth-and-10 in the fourth quarter
The game: New England 15, New York 10
I wasn't expecting Wilson to lead a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter against the Patriots, but on fourth-and-10 from the 45-yard line with 1:26 to go, I was expecting the embattled Jets quarterback to launch something beyond the sticks. I wasn't willing to count on him throwing that ball accurately or away from coverage, but he should know the game situation. Instead, this happened:
Fourth-and-10 for the Jets. pic.twitter.com/G6byDFCWoj
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) September 24, 2023
Yes, Wilson was about to be under pressure when he threw the ball 2 yards to tight end Tyler Conklin, but that was nearly four seconds after the snap. This pass needed to be out -- somewhere -- or Wilson needed to be on the move to try to set up a scramble drill. Throwing this pass to an uncovered receiver in the hope that he would be able to beat defenders to the line is one thing, but Wilson was throwing this to a tight end covered by an elite talent in Kyle Dugger. Even a prayer 15 yards downfield in the hopes of drawing a contested catch or pass interference would have been a better idea.
Is this a bad decision by Wilson? Of course, but it's a product of systematic failure by the Jets in how they built their 2023 plans. They couldn't have anticipated Aaron Rodgers would get injured on the first possession of their first game, of course, but the injury has laid bare the mistakes they made in building around him. Wilson is only magnifying those mistakes.
Start with the offensive line. I wouldn't count this as a pressure given Wilson's time to throw, but he finished the day taking pressures on 41% of his dropbacks, which was the third-highest rate of Week 3. A line that looked middling on paper has failed to live up to expectations. Tackle Duane Brown, 38, who missed most of camp after shoulder surgery, is now on injured reserve with a hip injury.
Mekhi Becton already has been moved from right tackle to his old role at left tackle, and guard Alijah Vera-Tucker has been forced to bump to tackle because the Jets didn't have a solution they liked on the outside without Brown in the fold. On that fourth down, Christian Barmore eventually created a pressure by disengaging from rookie Joe Tippmann, a center playing out of position at guard. A Tippmann holding penalty wiped off a Wilson 11-yard scramble late in the fourth quarter; on the next play, Matthew Judon beat Becton on a spin move to sack Wilson in the end zone for a safety. The two points gave the Patriots a five-point lead, forcing the Jets to shift from driving for a game-tying field goal on their final drives to desperately chasing a game-winning touchdown.
The coordinator drawing up the play is Nathaniel Hackett, whose résumé as a playcaller ranged on paper from middling to disastrous. Hackett was hired as offensive coordinator to help make life easier for Rodgers, but even their brief stint together in 2023 was disjointed. Before the disaster in Week 1, Rodgers reportedly expressed his displeasure with the offense using cut blocks to help create throwing lanes when they run quick game. Two of the three pass plays Rodgers ran were quick game with cut blocks. On the second of those plays, he held the ball longer than the play design demanded, was hit by Leonard Floyd and ruptured his left Achilles.
Hackett's playcall here doesn't give Wilson any easy answers or create any throwing lanes. It's static and doesn't provide answers for the man-to-man coverage the Patriots run. It's the sort of isolated passing concept you might run if you have a superstar wide receiver and a quarterback with impeccable accuracy and timing, like Rodgers with Davante Adams. Garrett Wilson might be that receiver, but nobody is really ever open on this play, and Wilson is not the kind of quarterback to throw anyone free. His other two receivers downfield are Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard, who fit into the "get anyone who has Rodgers' phone number" playbook. The Packers were 23 points of QBR worse with one or both of those players on the field last season.
Then, there's the decision to have Wilson in the game. Coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas were the ones who used the No. 2 pick on Wilson in 2021, propped the quarterback up until his comments after last season's loss to the Patriots made the situation untenable, then inserted Wilson back into the lineup until the season was lost for good.
Regardless of whether the Jets were going to acquire Rodgers, there was no reason to bring Wilson back in a meaningful role. Douglas could have re-signed Joe Flacco or Mike White, both of whom outproduced Wilson in the same offense last season. They could have signed Teddy Bridgewater or Jacoby Brissett or Andy Dalton, all of whom have track records as competent NFL quarterbacks. They could not have known Rodgers would get hurt immediately, but 39-year-old quarterbacks tend to be easily breakable. They had to at least prepare for a scenario in which Rodgers missed some time.
Instead, they brought back Wilson as Rodgers' primary backup. Their No. 3 at quarterback was Tim Boyle, who had a 12-to-26 touchdown-to-interception ratio in college (not a typo) before posting a 27.7 QBR on 106 pro pass attempts. His primary reason for appearing on the Jets' roster, of course: He knows Rodgers and Hackett from their time together in Green Bay.
The guys who thought Wilson was worth the second overall pick are the ones who kept him around as the primary solution if Rodgers got hurt or struggled. Now Wilson is surrounded by coaches and players whose best quality is being friends with a future Hall of Famer. The Jets have scored three offensive touchdowns in what amounts to three full Wilson starts. For whatever suggestion there was that he might learn from working behind Rodgers, he doesn't look any better in 2023 than he did in 2021 or 2022.
New York is now 1-2 with the Chiefs and Eagles coming to town before its Week 7 bye. There has been speculation the Jets should pursue a veteran such as Kirk Cousins to try to win this season, but that seems naive. The defense is very good, of course, but it ranks 15th in EPA per play allowed over the past two weeks and hasn't forced a turnover over that stretch. The Cardinals just did a much better job against the Cowboys on defense than the Jets did one week earlier.
A running game that looked dynamic in Week 1 has seen its running backs carry the ball 31 times for just 61 yards over the two ensuing weeks. Getting Cousins would make the rest of the team better, but all the concerns I mentioned around the quarterback aren't going away if Cousins shows up. This was a flawed team around Rodgers and is a hopeless one without him.
7. The Packers went for two down 8 points and came back to win
The game: Green Bay 18, New Orleans 17
Matt LaFleur generally has been an aggressive coach during his time in Green Bay, but the most dramatic moment of his five-year tenure was a spot of inexcusable conservatism. In 2020, the Packers kicked a field goal down eight points -- exactly what Josh McDaniels did Sunday night -- on fourth-and-goal from the 8-yard line late against the Buccaneers in the NFC Championship Game. That would be terrible for any offense, but it was even worse given that LaFleur was overseeing what was likely the most efficient red zone offense in NFL history that season. The Packers kicked and didn't touch the ball again until September.
On Sunday, LaFleur helped his team back into the game by making a call that has become more and more commonplace, even as it flummoxes commentators. After scoring a fourth-quarter touchdown to make it 17-9 with 7:02 to go, he kept his offense on the field to attempt a 2-point conversion. The Packers duly converted on a broken play in which Jordan Love completed a pass to Samori Toure, making it 17-11. After the Saints went three-and-out, a Packers touchdown drive gave them the lead with 2:59 to go.
In lieu of going through the math for why going for two down 8 makes sense, I'll defer to ESPN analytics writer Seth Walder, who has written a detailed explainer of why attempting a 2-point try in that scenario is a smart move for trailing coaches. To keep it simple, the chances of converting a 2-point try on the first attempt are better than the chances of failing on two attempts. And while kicking two extra points increases the chances of extending the game to overtime, going for two on that first attempt increases the chances of winning the game before overtime.
LaFleur's decision helped directly lead to a Packers victory, but it wasn't the only factor. Green Bay's defense was without top cornerback Jaire Alexander, and it lost linebacker De'Vondre Campbell to an ankle injury, but it held the Saints to 10 points on 10 drives. (The other seven points came from a Rashid Shaheed punt return touchdown.) Rashan Gary had three sacks, including one that knocked Derek Carr out of the game with a right shoulder injury. Even before the injury, Carr was averaging 5.7 yards per attempt. New Orleans finished with just 15 first downs.
The Green Bay offense admittedly is a work in progress. Its execution on a fourth-down double pass attempt was almost comically bad, while another fourth-down try failed when Love and Patrick Taylor weren't on the same page. Saints fans will feel like they lost because of a wonky 2-point conversion, Carr's injury and a missed 46-yard field goal by Blake Grupe with 1:10 to go. They were the better team Sunday, but LaFleur's correct call helped steal a victory for the Packers.